


Scully of 1000 Lives

by DoctorSyntax



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Asphyxiation, Bondage, Erotic Photography, Gen, Invasion of Privacy, Sadomasochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorSyntax/pseuds/DoctorSyntax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day he witnessed her living will, Mulder learned an unexpected new fact about Scully and made her another, more personal promise. The night she is abducted, he makes good. Ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scully of 1000 Lives

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a play on Billy Bragg's "Cindy of 1000 Lives" which is, in turn, a reference to the photographer Cindy Sherman, famous for her self-portraits.

Georgetown, DC  
October 15, 1994  
3:04 AM

A heavy hand on his shoulder startles Mulder out of his stupor; he's sorry to say he's spent the last twenty minutes slumped in an armchair, staring glassy-eyed at Scully's carpet. He looks up into the eyes of the detective handling the case until the Bureau takes over. He's a nice enough guy. Very by-the-book; Scully would be glad to know someone so methodical was investigating her disappearance.

"Time to pack it in, Agent."

It's then that Mulder realizes they're the only two left in the apartment. He has no idea when the rest of the crime scene techs left or how he didn't manage to notice them going, but it's not like it matters so he just wilts back into the chair. "I'm going to stay for a little while longer. She wouldn't mind."

The detective hesitates. "Agent Mulder, I know you used to be her partner but…" he trails off, apparently trying to think of a delicate way to phrase 'but letting you stay here like a creep is against regulations'.

Mulder digs around in his pocket and pulls out his keys. "I have her spare," he replies, singling it out; easy enough since she'd put a little blue rubber ring around it. "Go ahead and test it if you don't believe me."

After a long, silent look, the detective does just that, locking and unlocking her front door. When he sees that it works, that appears to satisfy him. "Make sure the scene is secure when you leave," is all he says, handing the keys back.

Mulder doesn't have the energy to do anything but nod, burying his face in his hands. He knows exactly what conclusion the detective has leapt to, and does not care. Let him. Let everyone think it, if it'll make them work harder to bring her back to him. Oh, Scully. _Where the hell are you?_

_How could you leave me like this?_

He hears rather than sees the front door shut, and then silence takes over. In the apartment, in his head. It's like Duane Barry took all the life out of the world when he took Scully.

 

*

J. Edgar Hoover Building - Basement  
April 20, 1994  
11:26 AM

Paperwork day is always a bitch. Today the struggle isn't in thinking up ways to explain the unexplainable, it's in writing about how very close they both came to death. Knowing that if help had come just a couple hours later, the results might have been drastically different. Thinking about all the things they would have left unfinished.

From her area in the corner, Scully breaks the gloom. "Mulder?"

"Hmm?"

"I've been thinking about the case in Washington."

 _Me too_ , he wants to say, but doesn't. When in doubt, make a joke. "Well I hope so, since we've been working on our reports all morning."

"Not that." She opens her briefcase and pulls out a legal-sized manila folder, then crosses the room to sit in what he privately considers her chair. "We came so close to dying. Spending so long in quarantine made me realize that I haven't updated my living will since being transferred into the field." She slides the folder across the desk. "I had this drawn up. I was hoping you would witness it for me."

He signs the document inside with only the briefest of glances, trusting her to know what she wants. Truthfully, there's a part of him that does not want to confirm what he already knows her wishes are.

For a moment she watches him in inscrutable silence. "If you haven't done so recently, I suggest you take a look at yours also, Mulder."

"Mine's fine," he answers, waving a dismissive hand. "But I do want to draw up a new medical POA." He does not mention that the old one has been invalid for some time, as divorce nullifies any legal document in which the ex-spouse is named as agent. It's not something he feels is relevant.

"Oh?" she asks, sounding mildly intrigued although she must know where he is going with this.

"Sure," he answers, throwing a pencil at the ceiling because it means he does not have to look at her. It doesn't stick. "Who better to make health-care decisions for me than my own, personal Doctor Scully? Make sure you get your money's worth from that M.D." He smirks at her.

He can see in her face that she recognizes it as the gesture of trust he means it to be, even if the thought of saying it in so many words terrifies him. The moment pauses between them, skirting the edge of that ever-present deeper intimacy they both try so hard to ignore. He's not even sure if he's breathing as he waits to see how she will handle this stupid, too-heavy admission of his.

"You'll be laughing out the other side of your face when I shoot you myself and then sign a DNR on your behalf," she comments, lightly.

Relief floods his mind. Banter, he understands. "As if. Killing me won't get you anything, it's not like you're in my will yet."

"What a shame," she parries. "I was looking forward to inheriting your video collection."

"If you really feel that way…" he starts, but the abrupt change in her expression gives him pause. Something's made the color drain from her face. Given the overall subject of the conversation, he's not surprised, but the terrible indecision in her expression bothers him.

"Spit it out, Scully," he says, trying to gentle the tone of his voice and mostly failing.

She doesn't seem the least bit surprised that he picked up on her uncertainty, but neither does she speak right away. Typical Scully, overthinking how to phrase something when all he ever wants from her is unfiltered honesty. "I need to ask you a favor," she says, finally. Her eyes are fixed somewhere to the right of his face. "It's kind of a big one, and very personal, and I need your assurance that it will remain strictly confidential. If that's not something you think you can handle, tell me now and I won't ask."

"No can do, Scully."

She looks over, gaze sharp, clearly not anticipating that answer. He puts a finger to his lips and makes a gesture that is somehow supposed to remind her that their office is almost certainly bugged. He's pretty sure she gets it anyway. "As the senior agent on the X Files, I'm technically your superior and I'm afraid that would cross the lines of professional conduct."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine," she snaps, overselling it a little if you ask him. "Forget I asked. Do you, as the senior agent and my technical superior, think I can take my lunch break now?"

"Put it out of your mind," he answers generously. "As for lunch—yes! Absolutely. I think I will too." Standing, he grabs his suit jacket off the back of his chair and winks.

She gives him that barely-tolerant smile—the one that means she's absolutely charmed by him—and heads out of the office. He follows, dying to know what information his secretive Scully has with which to rock his world today.

 

*

Georgetown, DC  
October 15, 1994  
3:25 AM

The chest at the foot of her bed does indeed have a false bottom. He'd known that it would—she had no reason to lie to him about it—but somehow, there was a part of him that hadn't believed what she told him. He'd compartmentalized this revelation about her personal life with efficiency. Intentionally and out of necessity, for the most part, but also because it was so incongruous with the way she presented herself at work. Everyone you meet has a secret life you'll never know, and so forth.

Scully's contraband is arranged in a nice, neat row. There's a large metal box with a lock on it—finally, the explanation for the tiny key hanging on the ring with all her others. And here he'd thought it was to a diary.

Next to that is a large leather photo album tied shut with a brown ribbon. No explanation needed there.

Next, a camera bag containing a few lenses, some rolls of film and an older, but carefully maintained, X-700 with the name Karel Papánek etched into the bottom. Secondhand, then, but how long has it been in her possession?

And finally, a somewhat newer-looking tripod, small, maybe six inches tall at the most.

His profiler's mind sees the pieces and infers the larger picture. What she does with these items and the way they are set up here, in this bedroom, when she uses them. His brain also helpfully fills in deductive guesses about her partners—authoritative douchebags like Jack Willis, older men with the power she so carefully pretends not to crave.

If he tried hard enough, made a few minor tweaks to his personality, he could be one of them. It's a thought he's had before, but one he tries not to dwell on for a lot of reasons.

Now, staring at her bed, it's all he can think of.

 

*

National Mall  
April 20, 1994  
12:15 PM

They stop at a deli around the corner from the Hoover building and get lunch to go, before heading on to the National Mall. It's a beautiful day at the beginning of tourist season, so it takes a moment for them to find an empty bench.

Once there, however, Scully doesn't seem to want to talk anymore, so Mulder digs into his lunch and trusts that she'll open up when she's ready.

It doesn't take long. Five minutes, maybe. "Mulder… if I should die, or somehow come under criminal investigation during the course of our partnership, I need you to destroy certain things in my apartment. Things that have the potential to change the way my loved ones think of me, and compound their grief. Or, if I'm alive, get me dismissed the FBI and possibly indicted for additional crimes."

Mulder raises an eyebrow. "Just when I think I have you figured out. What could you possibly have that could do all that?"

"As I'm sure you've already guessed, it's sexually explicit material—"

He holds up a hand to halt her. "Scully, do _not_ tell me you have kiddie porn or snuff films stashed away somewhere…"

"Mulder!" she scolds, before lowering her voice again. Her cheeks are a gratifying pink underneath her dusting of freckles. It's not the first time he's wondered if the blush goes all the way down. "No, nothing like that. Everything involves consensual adults. But there's been some controversy over the acts themselves, not to mention some heartbreaking court cases that have ruined the lives of innocent people."

Okay, he's starting to get the idea here. "I don't think your mother will look too hard at your weird porn collection."

"It's not a porn collection in the sense that you mean." She sighs, clearly reluctant to share the rest of the story. "There are a few items, but what I'm most worried about are the photos. They're… somewhat personal in nature, and have the potential to compromise the reputations of several other individuals. They allowed me to take the photographs under the condition that I guard them carefully. I don't intend to betray that trust, even in death."

When he finishes parsing her words, his jaw actually drops. He has a half-chewed mouthful of sandwich on display; it's all very charming. "Wow." In a vain attempt to buy some time, he swallows, trying to regain his equilibrium. "I had no idea you liked it kinky, Agent Scully. When we get back to the office I'm going to have to revise your profile."

He says it like a joke, but he _does_ have a profile and he _will_ be revising it, for what seems like the hundredth time since Bellefleur. Each time he makes a change, it's another thing that makes her seem tailor-made for him… but that's a line of thought he shouldn't pursue right now.

She glares at him. He presses on, because what did she expect?

"What else lurks beneath that prim Catholic exterior? Do you have any tattoos? Piercings in… interesting places?" He makes a big show of glancing at her chest and back up. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

When he meets her gaze again, it's unamused. Normally her eyes betray how funny she finds him, no matter how well the rest of her hides it—right now it just makes him realize how serious this is to her. "Please don't make me regret trusting you with this, Mulder," she says.

His mouth snaps shut. Professional Agent Mode activated. "Yeah, about that… why me?"

She shrugs, looking away from him. "My family has no knowledge of my lifestyle, nor do I want them seeing such explicit pictures of me and my partners. And all of my friends in D.C. have children, so I'd rather not expose them to the risk, however slight."

"And the people in the pictures? Why not one of them?"

She stabs at some lettuce. "Mostly exes, a few friends from medical school that don't live around here… nobody my family would allow into my apartment if I died, and certainly not unsupervised. But you, nobody'd think twice."

He knows what it is costing her to ask this favor. What's more, it's a clear reciprocation of the trust he'd extended to her half an hour ago. He'd be a fool to deny her this.

"Sneak your dirty pictures and sex toys out of your apartment and destroy them," he recites. "Don't get caught doing it. Got it. Hey Scully, am I allowed to look at them first?" He's expecting her to shoot him down out of hand, so her speculative look and the wry twist to her mouth surprise him.

"I suppose, being dead, I wouldn't be able to stop you."

"That's not a 'yes'."

"It's not a 'no' either," is all she says, and her expression is as impenetrable as it was the day they met. He files her lack of forbidding away, under the heading 'She Keeps The Mystery Alive,' to ponder later. Late at night, when his thoughts inevitably turn to her so they don't have to turn to Samantha.

"Okay. One more question."

She looks like she's steeling herself for the worst. Smart girl. "Ask away."

"What's your safeword, G-woman?" he asks with a grin, unable to resist, and she throws a cherry tomato at his face. God, he loves making her make that expression.

 

*

Georgetown, DC  
October 15, 1994  
3:42 AM

His hand hovers near the album cover. Her permission was ambiguous at best, he tells himself. He should respect her privacy. Scully's so proud—rightfully proud of her accomplishments, but the flip side is her unwillingness to ever let anyone see that she's human.

Of course she would take pictures. Her scientific mind would want to document every step of her experiments and provide evidence of her achievements. Even if she could never share said evidence with anyone, she'd want to know it existed.

But in the moment, for him, just knowing that it exists is not enough. Lack of an explicit yes should stop him, but he wants so desperately to know what's inside. To finally see every aspect of the life that's becoming ever more entwined with his. This whole night has felt so very surreal; maybe this will help remind him how real they both are.

Before his conscious mind has made a decision, he's stretching out on her bed and tugging on one end of the album's ribbon. He takes a deep breath and opens the cover.

The photos are large, each the size of a regular sheet of paper, glossy and professionally developed. There's a lot of them. He'd wonder who was printing them for her, but he's too focused on the first image: a woman wearing nothing but panties, face-up on the floor near an old-fashioned red stove, legs secured to a spreader bar. Her head is turned away, every single facial feature hidden from the camera's viewfinder. She's about the same build as Scully, but her hair is long and dark. Someone else? Or Scully, in a wig? Has her hair ever been dyed that color? He knows so little about her life before the X Files.

His eyes linger over the gentle slope of the woman's breasts, the arc of her back formed of struggling against her bonds. It takes him a minute to notice the decidedly non-standard use of standard-issue FBI handcuffs on the woman's wrists—and is that the edge of Scully's gun just inside the frame? Is it Jack Willis'? The innocent white cotton panties coupled with the obscene pose and restraints speak to the classic Madonna/whore complex, but from which participant is the setup of the fantasy coming?

Christ, he feels like he should be taking notes. This is a side of her he's never seen, will probably never see again—except in his memory. Maybe he should have thought about that before he opened Pandora's box.

And what does it say about him that he's already painfully hard? Nothing good, that's for sure, but he can force that to the back of his mind for now.

Another photo shows the beautiful, pale curve of a woman's back with a perfect Fibonacci spiral etched into it. He can't help tracing his finger along it, outlining the path the scalpel on the bed must have taken. The photograph is exquisite; though to him the blood looks a dull brown, he can tell how bright-red it must really be. The sharp contrast between it and the woman's creamy skin, underscored by the clean line of the pattern.

From the composition of the photo it's impossible to tell who the woman is, not that he was expecting otherwise. Scully's hands are certainly steady enough to have carved it, but the freckles smattered across the subject's back lend credence to the notion that it could be her on the bed.

He stares at this one for a long time, transfixed by it, trying to decide which he'd prefer and never quite reaching a decision. But he knows this: he cannot destroy these pictures, not yet. He'll take them home and guard them carefully, but until he knows for sure she's not coming back, he can't destroy them. It's not breaking his promise—she's not under investigation, technically, and he refuses to believe that she's dead.

He keeps flipping through the pages, trying to absorb as many details as he can. Small, angry red handprints on a man's ass. Another of the same man, bound facedown on the bed, back crisscrossed with shallow welts. Scully in a baggy, threadbare University of Maryland shirt and nothing else, straddling the hips of an unknown man. Carefree smile on her face, Wartenberg pinwheel in her hand.

Mulder's seen that smile before. Rarely, but occasionally, he catches her in the right mood with the right innuendo, and her whole face opens like a morning glory at sunrise. Seeing it in a context like this feels like a revelation he doesn't want to face, so he takes a minute to force his analytical brain back online and keeps going.

The major theme the photos keep coming back to is rope. It's almost certainly her favorite thing: it's featured in far and away the most photographs, and there's a lovingly documented progression from simpler ties to more complicated ones. In the later ones the harnesses are so intricate, so beautifully woven together it's like she's elevated it to an art form.

Always men, in those photos. Their faces are out of the shot but there's at least two different men, maybe a third. One of them has a tattoo across his torso—impossible to hide from the camera—which could easily be used to identify him. Mulder has a half-formed thought of running it through the database at work but dismisses it almost as soon as it comes to mind; the odds that this man has a criminal record is slim. He's probably a doctor, another agent, some buttoned-up young professional indulging Scully's vice despite the risk because—why?

Does, or did, he love her? Is he desperate to please her? Does it thrill him to know these photos exist, or does he only allow them because of Scully's irreproachable personal integrity?

The final one he looks at is a close-up of man on his back. A woman's hand, Scully's by the look of it, wrapped around his neck. Choking him. The photo cuts off just below the man's mouth, so Mulder can see the strong angle of his chin. So he can see, with great clarity, the way her fingers are pressing against the side of the man's throat, cutting off his blood flow rather than the crude and dangerous method of bearing down on his windpipe. Doctor Scully knows her stuff.

He shuts the photo album, shoving it across the bed, away from him. For an interminable amount of time he stares at the ceiling, breathing deeply and trying to ignore his raging hard-on. The sheets still smell like her.

It comes too close to home. It's too easy to imagine himself on the bed—this bed—beneath her, immobile, her small fingers against his neck. To remember the light, floating feeling that can overtake even the most deep-seated biological urge to survive, and brings him peace he can't find anywhere else. The desire that he tries not to think about and can almost never indulge, now finding new life in a fantasy so perfectly packaged as to border on irresistible.

He thought… he thought these photos would help him feel closer to her. That seeing Scully 'at home,' as it were, would be a source of comfort and strength for him to draw upon.

It's not. She's gone. He's here, in her space, with her most intimate secrets, but she's never felt further away.


End file.
